Blood Paint (Charmed # 5 Comic Review)

The Charmed Ones are ready for the showdown with a soul stealing demon? Can Piper, Phoebe, and Paige stop him, save their loved ones, and handle their own personal lives?

What you need to know: This was the final issue of the series, so there is quite a bit to catch up on. Piper, Phoebe, and Paige are the Charmed Ones, the most powerful witches in the world. They have power individually but together they have the Power of Three which makes them deadly to demons and other supernatural evil. So far in this arc the sisters are dealing with many personal issues. Piper is having to deal with taxes, Phoebe is mulling over a promotion, and Paige is busy mentoring a new witch, Shaina. They are unaware they are unaware of a plot to kill the Charmed Ones and steal the souls of humans by a mysterious entity called Djall, who was given power by a woman named Maisey. He is using Paige’s old flame, Gabe, to open portals to the Underworld using a special paint that he has given him. These portals steal the souls of helpless mortals and lets demons possess their bodies. Their souls are then held in cages in the Underworld.

In the previous installments, the Charmed Ones fend off attacks from demons while they investigate Phoebe’s premonitions. She sees the IRS agent attack Piper, and sees Gabe’s “agent” Djall doing some mystic shenanigans in her visions. During the course of the story several people get possessed including Elyse, Phoebe’s boss, and Piper’s employees at the club, P3. Eventually, Paige and Gabe are possessed. This leads up to the events in issue 5.

What you find out in issue 5: Leo, Piper’s husband, is fighting the possessed Gabe. Shaina uses an illusion of a unicorn to distract him and a potion that replicates Piper’s freezing power to freeze Gabe. They trap Gabe in some crystals. (In Charmed mythology, they can trap demons with crystal cages). They then go to P3 where Piper and Phoebe are fighting all their possessed friends and Paige. Between Shaina’s potion and Piper’s actual freezing power they capture all the demons. Shaina helps them to free Paige’s soul. The Charmed Ones free everyone.

They then go to the Underworld, where they encounter Maisey. She is holding Gabe’s soul with an athame to his throat. Paige orbs the athame out of her hands and stabs her with it. The Charmed Ones then vanquish her with the Power of Three. They are surprised that Gabe’s soul did not go back to his body. They figure out that the paint that Djall gave him was mixed with Djall’s blood and that’s what opens the portals and the paint on Gabe’s clothes is preventing him from returning to his body.

Djall is furious that Maisey is dead and attacks the Charmed Ones at the manor. He seems to beat them easily, but it turns out that he was fighting Shaina’s illusions. They then appear and throw potions at him. Djall deflects the potions, but Paige orbs them back at him. After the potions hit him, they cast a Power of Thee spell and vanquish Djall, which frees anybody that was still possessed. The issue wraps up with Phoebe turning down the job, Shaina turning down an invitation for more adventuring, and Paige spending time with Gabe, who has menacing red eyes in the last panel.

What just happened: This was the last issue of the first Charmed series by Dynamite. Zenescope did several volumes before this one. This series does not continue the other book’s continuity. This volume seems to be set somewhere between seasons 4 and 5 of the television show. The writing was very well done in this comic and was very much in the vein of the show. The art was nice and some of the likenesses of the show’s actresses was very good. Of course, the likenesses did not hold up in every panel, but the art was well done. This was a good start to Dynamite’s take on the Charmed Ones and left it open for future installments.

Rating 9/10

Final Thoughts: This issue was great and I think any fan of Charmed would enjoy it. You might drive yourself crazy trying to figure out where it fits into continuity, but if you don’t think too hard about that, it’s a fun ride.